Fitchburg City Council takes first look at budget

FITCHBURG -- The City Council had its first look at Mayor Lisa Wong's approximately $106 million proposed fiscal 2015 budget at a special meeting held Tuesday evening that focused on revenues.

Wong's draft fiscal 2015 budget shows an increase of about $1.2 million over the operational budget for the current fiscal year, with the vast majority of revenue coming from various forms of state aid and taxation.

According to City Auditor Richard Sarasin, state aid, which includes aid for schools, general aid and reimbursements for school-building projects, accounts for about 48 percent of the city's projected fiscal 2015 revenue at just under $50.5 million.

Sarasin said taxation represents about 42 percent of the overall budget at just over $44.4 million. An additional nearly $1.1 million, or 2 1/2 percent of the prior year's approximate $43.8 million tax-levy limit, has been added under Proposition 2 1/2.

In terms of new growth, $450,000 has been projected in revenue for new businesses and housing, down about $9,000 from the current fiscal year.

Local receipts and nonrecurring revenues account for another 8 percent of the budget, Sarasin said, and other revenue sources, mainly reimbursements from the city's water and sewer enterprise funds, represent about 2 percent.

Councilor-at-Large Marcus DiNatale, often at odds with Wong over the city's finances, said he calculated a 31 percent increase in city taxes since 2008. He said yearly new growth is also down 46 percent.

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"I just wanted that pointed out," DiNatale said. "It's not a very good trend."

Wong, however, said after the meeting that she disagrees with DiNatale's numbers and method of calculation.

"If you have increases based on new growth and taxes, then you can't take them over a sum that includes both of those things, because that's not a true increase," she said.

Wong said she calculated that taxes have increased 23 percent over the past eight years, and the tax base has expanded 13 percent in that time. She said the historical view on new growth, which goes back to fiscal 2008 on her budget, doesn't give an entirely accurate picture of new growth in the city over the years.

New growth in fiscal 2008, which was nearly $841,000, had spiked due to condominium projects at the time, Wong said, and the previous year was closer to the $200,000 range.

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